67
by Silenceheard
Summary: The odds were good.


**Title:** 67%  
**Fandom:** Fullmetal Alchemist  
**Pairing:** RoyEd  
**Words:** 1812  
**Rating:** **T**  
**Warnings:** Language, Angst and Character Death  
**Summary: **The odds were good.

**A/N:** Written for prompt #70. This was supposed to be a short drabble. :/ writing skills are rusted over too.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own FMA or the characters, only the writing is mine.

Fullmetal Alchemist © Hiromu Arakawa

* * *

Edward paced back and forth, his boots squelching a combination of rain water and mud over the linoleum floor of the waiting room.

"Boss, why don't you sit down, it's not going to do any good workin' yourself up like this," said Havoc, as he rolled the end of a broken cigarette to shreds between his nicotine-stained fingers.

Ed growled, literally _growled_, at the blue eyed man, "Shut the fuck up, Havoc," effectively silencing any further attempt to soothe his frayed nerves.

"Brother," the warning tone from Al should have been an indication of what an asshole he was being, how lose he was coming at the seams. The garish truth was that he couldn't find one fuck in his arsenal of enmity to give.

Ed wanted to yell. But he couldn't get enough breath to swallow around the lump that kept rising in his throat. Instead, Edward bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, and continued with his pacing, wary, caged predator-eyes darting towards the steel double doors at the end of the hall. Somewhere on the other side of those doors Mustang was fighting for his life on an operating table.

'And why is that?' Ed raged silently to himself. He made a tight turn at the end of the waiting area, the wet ends of his coat slapped harshly against his legs, he marched back the way he'd come. 'Cause some lil'shit, that Roy is trying to make this damn country a better place for, shot him.'

The odds were good. Riza, with blood that was not her own, vividly bright and far too much of it covering her hands and chest, had been adamant that the doctor said Mustang had a sixty-seven percent chance of making it through surgery alive.

What was sixty-seven percent? It was little more than a fifty-fifty chance at survival. It wasn't a hundred; there was a thirty-three percent chance for failure. But it wasn't zero. Sixty-seven was a number higher than fifty by seventeen. Alternatively thirty-three was a number lower than fifty by seventeen. Ed quickly distracted himself with the numbers, finding small comfort in their quantitative qualities before he exhausted their every possible use just as quickly as he had found them. Good odds. Not perfect. Not a sure thing no matter how the odds played out. For better or the unthinkable.

What were the chances that Roy would make it through this only to die from his injuries anyway?

Footsteps coming down the hallway, the anxiety in Ed's chest tripled, and it was only Hawkeye. Of the scrubs a nurse had given her to change into she wore only the baggy top, the muted sky blue colour washing out her ashen complexion and clashing with the darker-stained- navy pants of her uniform. Her arms, scrubbed raw of blood, were still just as red in the false clinical light. Her gaze immediately found Ed's, and the anguish he felt within himself, he saw mirrored in her own eyes. An understanding clicked itself into place somewhere in the disarray of his emotions that it wasn't just Ed's lover on that operating table: it was Riza Hawkeye's commander.

The lump in his throat doubled in size; he wasn't the only one who could lose Roy today. A different kind a anguish, a mixture of self-loathing and guilt, flooded his body. Here he was thinking of only himself and what he stood to lose, and acting like a royal prick on top of it, again. But Riza, loyal, stronger than steel, Riza could lose the man she'd sworn to protect. Of course, she would never let the goal they had bled so much for die with him. No, Roy had surrounded himself with people who would ensure that his death would not mean the end of democracy and a better day, greater tomorrow for Amestris. Still the loss of such a great man, Riza's commander and more importantly her friend, a loss so brutally being perceived as a failure in her eyes, could only leave an agonizing scar where the bond of their devotion would be so savagely ripped away.

Ed was selfish for having thought this only affected him. However, there was an understanding he didn't expect to see in her eyes, too. Where as Roy's dream, his ideals, would not die with him, the love that thrived between him and Edward would. Although the feelings may never truly die, without anything to sustain it, their love would stagnate. Withering away as flowers do in an antique vase without water: little by little the memories would fall away into obscurity. Small things at first, such as how Roy would carefully organize his clothes in the wardrobe, the amount of time he took to style his hair just so before he ran a distracted hand through it and made it perfect or the way he drank his coffee. To more important things like the exact timbre of his laugh, the feel of his bare hand in Ed's own, the full richness of Roy's natural baritone saying his name. Until all Ed would be able to recall was the pure agonizing passion of the love he had for a man with midnight summer eyes of blue.

Ed managed a tight nod of his head, trying to convey as much as he could that he understood, and unable to remain still any longer, resumed his canter. Riza dropped a plastic bag containing her soiled jacket onto the floor, put her back against the wall of the waiting room and stood at attention, sharp eyes never leaving the doors at the end of the hall.

On his fourth circuit of the waiting room, Ed noticed that the normally immaculate lieutenant still bore splotches of blood beneath her right ear. The sight of those dark stains brought a capricious realization to the forefront of Ed's inner-turmoil. Riza had been there with Roy the entire time. She had come with the Fuhrer in the back of an ambulance, very likely putting all her strength alongside the medics into stopping a life threatening wound for the entire ride, while the rest of Team Mustang ran crowd control. That was more than Ed could say for himself.

Where had he been?

The blonde's thoughts stumbled back a few hours ago -had it only been that long?- through the hazed stress to a brick building and countless waxy brochures on an oak table. That's right, he had been with Alphonse at the university, looking over programs that suited Al's area of expertise now that he was back from Xing. The light and carefree banter of the brothers afternoon being shattered by the screeching of tires on pavement. He hadn't even known anything was wrong until Havoc had come running up the stairs to get him.

_'Why didn't I know?!'_ Ed screamed at himself, chewing earnestly on the tip of his thumb, tasting the damp fabric of the cotton glove on his tongue. A taste, saliferously lymphatic, that would coat the memory of this nightmarish day on his palate. If you were deeply close to someone-shared their saliva, sweat, cum and dreams- weren't you supposed to know the moment something was wrong with them? Or wasn't someone's significant other supposed to feel an inkling of impending dread and warn their partner of the danger before anything happened to them?

Ed scoured his thoughts for any misgivings, no matter how small, about Roy's safety and well being that he may have had. He found none. Maybe it meant he wasn't as close to Roy as he thought?

Ed clenched his fists, he wanted to break something. A lot of something.

Beneath the glove on his left hand, Ed could feel the cool metal band around his third finger. It felt stone cold against his skin and with each passing hour the weight tripled as if it was anchoring him to this very moment and not the future it promised. That Roy had promised him.

'_I promised too you fuckin' bastard!_'

Ed felt hot -he was _not_ crying- tears prick at the corners of his eyes and blinked furiously to make them go away. What was he worried for? This was Roy Mustang for fucks' sake, you couldn't take out Roy Mustang with the best laid plans and sure as hell, no lil'snot-nosed fucker was going to take claim to that. Roy would be fine.

They were going to have their future together damnit!

Ed drew in a shuddering breath and hacked a cough that could have been to cover a sniffle. Havoc was right, he should apologize to him as well, he was getting himself too worked up abo-

The squeak of a door hinge captured everyone's attention; a man in stained, green medical scrubs walked straight towards them.

Ed turned and ran.

He was outside in the pouring rain, before the surgeon had said a word, running as fast as his legs would carry him. He was drenched in a matter of minutes, chilled to the bone and still he pushed himself to run even faster. The rain was warm on his face, in sharp contrast with the rest of his body. If he ran long enough that, too, would be cold.

A voice in his head, yelling in time with his pounding heart asked how he could be such a coward. Why did he have to assume the worst had happened? How did he know?

He knew.

He'd known the moment he'd locked eyes with the doctor. He'd seen that same look in Granny's eyes when their mother passed away and he couldn't bear to hear another doctor tell him he'd lost someone else.

He skidded to a stop on slick pavement, leaned over and promptly heaved the contents of his stomach onto the sidewalk. Ed stared at the spatter of vomit then punched the closest thing within reach: it turned out to be a wall. He punched the wall until his knuckles were broken, torn bloody; he continued to pound his flesh against the unforgiving brick. Only when he stopped did he realize the ring he wore had cut deep into the flesh of his finger.

Edward screamed.

* * *

The homeless man, who come upon the hysterical, blonde man screaming in the street on his knees in a puddle of vomit, could only discern the reason for his distress was because a thirty-three percent chance had taken his life away.

The vagrant man patted the young man's shoulder sympathetically, assumed he had the ill-fortune of betting on horses, and told him not to worry about his unlucky horse too much because Fuhrer Mustang -a sure winning horse that one- was going to change the world and the way people lived their lives anyway. Then he shouldered his own pity and shame and asked for some spare change.

**End.**


End file.
